In the End
by Zee-Zee Magee
Summary: Sometimes the ending for our heroes isn't always a happy one. Sometimes real life decides to knock them down too. Sometimes tragedy is the only thing left.


The end starts, as all endings do, with death.

5.

It starts with Parker. Well, to be fair it technically starts with Archie but you'll understand soon enough.

It starts with Parker getting kidnapped during a job. It was a rescue mission turned sour. Archie needed help and Parker offered it up. This time she had actually told the team what she was doing and they automatically came to her aid. Things just ended up turning for the worst. Well, to be more specific, the job turns for the worst while Parker and Archie are still in the warehouse.

They were stealing, it's their thing. Then the lights had gone out, according to Parker. The team didn't really know what happened next. All they heard were voices, shouts, punches and kicks, and a few gunshots. Then nothing but Eliot's heavy breathing. He was the only one who was close enough to help and that was two blocks by foot. He was already too late but everybody pestered him anyway. They didn't really feel up to the whole believing the truth thing yet.

Eliot found Archie with a bullet in the head and the signs of a struggle everywhere on his body. Parker was nowhere to be found.

They searched for a good three weeks before they got a good lead. One of Sophie's old contacts, the one she swore she would rather die than call for reasons everybody refused to touch, explained there was a rumor of an uncatchable thief being strung up nearby. Naturally, they rushed to follow the lead while it was still hot. It was a warehouse very similar to the one where they had lost Archie. Eliot even had moments of flashbacks it was so similar. It had been way out of the way of their mark. Somewhere in the boonies near a friend of a friend of a friend of a mortal enemy. They each approached the place with fully loaded guns and no doubt in their minds that they would fire. Eliot was even carrying two, yeah they were that pissed off.

It was Hardison who found her, hanging from the rafters. Literally hanging too. The bastards strung her up to the ceiling after they decided beating information out of her wasn't enough. Her little blonde body was just swinging in the breeze. Both of her eyes were swollen shut, her lip was split and bulbous in size. Everything about her tiny body screamed torture and torment in her last waking hours.

Anyway, Parker was dead and they all felt nothing but rage at the news. They got their vengeance of course. Hardison and Nate were the only ones not allowed to do any killing, but they got their revenge. They still lost their Parker though.

4.

Coincidentally enough, the hacker was the next to go.

It was another job gone wrong but that wasn't exactly a surprise, not anymore. It was the way the job went wrong that was the surprise.

Sophie and Hardison were grifting up a storm in the bank of their mark. They were doing their usual inspection to have access to all of the safety account boxes. Hardison had actually just gotten hold of the keys when all hell broke loose.

Apparently one of the other victims of their mark decided to snap. He raced into the bank and just started firing bullets off to get some attention. He forced everybody towards the corner and shot anybody who didn't get there as soon as he wanted them too. That was what happened to Hardison.

The guy had pushed Sophie to the ground despite the fact that she was getting towards the back quite quickly. She fell over the table and Hardison immediately helped her up. The guy pulled him away from her and said something along the lines of, "You're trying to rob me of my revenge and be the hero."

The hacker didn't even have time to defend his actions. The guy just pointed the barrel at his head and fired. Hardison collapsed with a bullet to the brain pretty close to the exact same spot Archie's bullet had been.

Eliot wasn't the one to extract vengeance even though he was literally about to take him out with the gun he packed ever since Parker. Neither did Nate.

3.

Sophie was the next to go only Death wasn't so kind with her.

It was madness that took the grifter away.

It was an hour or so after the hacker's tragedy was over. Nate had tried to comfort her and she was suddenly screaming and mumbling in despair to the point where Eliot had to sedate her with a knock to the head.

Apparently Hardison was her last straw. She couldn't handle losing two children so close together. It had only been a year between the two. The doctors had explained that she shouldn't have even lasted as long as she had given the amount of trauma she went through.

Nate still visits her everyday even though the doctors tell him to move on. He refuses and they understand because they do work in an asylum for the mentally insane.

Eliot supervises all of their visits. He stands outside the door with his arms crossed over his chest and waits. His blue eyes stare directly at the two and never waver. He became more protective than ever the day Parker died. Now, he wouldn't let them out of his sight except for bathroom breaks.

Sophie doesn't get any vengeance, but she gets visits. Nate made sure of that. Sometimes she tries to kill him and sometimes he's allowed to touch her. That's their relationship now. The doctors sigh and moan about it but they do nothing. They're paid to do nothing. Nate and Eliot bought them a new wing and everything.

2.

Eliot is the most recent casualty.

Moreau finds Eliot. Well, Moreau chooses the lazy way and hires somebody else to find and take care of Eliot.

The hitter gets no warning. He hears the distinctive snap and then he's gone. It's short. It's simple. It's sweet vengeance at work.

A sniper in the middle of a gun fight isn't something anybody would expect. Not even Eliot. There are tons of bodies pouring with still hot blood. Nate is off on the sidelines because that was where he was pushed. Then Eliot takes a few steps forward to finish off any stragglers.

The hitter's chest starts pouring blood and he collapses to the ground. Nate does everything he can to stop the bleeding but it's already too late. Eliot's expression was already blank.

Vengeance was taken the Parker and Hardison way. A computer, a bomb, an elevator, and Moreau; that's all you need to know.

1.

Nate is currently sitting in the visiting room of the asylum. Sophie's head is in his lap and his fingers are brushing through her hair as if nothing else mattered in the world. Today is a no straight jacket day so he gets as long as he wants with her. The doctors even leave them alone.

He steals her twenty minutes later and has them both in the apartment before anybody would even think to check up on them. He pulled a Hardison with their cameras and put it on a loop with some video he made a few weeks ago. He's been planning this for quite some time really.

Sophie had always asked him to take her home and he figured today was the day. She wouldn't get the chance to ever be home again. So he stole her using Eliot's way on anybody who dared to protest. Parker would have just been proud of the whole idea.

They both stumble to the bed and Nate curls around the grifter as if life depended on it. They've been lying on the bed for hours. At least that's what the clock says. To Nate it only feels like minutes. He wants to prolong the inevitable for as long as he can.

It is when he begins to think about the gun in his bedside table that the grifter makes her move. She turns towards him and immediately uses her left hand to turn his face towards her.

"You better end me too," she says. Her brown eyes are actually full of clarity and she sounds far more aware of her surroundings than she has in a very long time. Besides, her words were actually words instead of the usual babble pouring from her lips.

Nate just blinks at her statement and thinks about it. He shakes his head and pulls her impossibly closer. It's impossible because she's already pretty much on top of him, but that doesn't really matter.

"No," he says, "I can't."

He's looking her in the eye as he says this and is expecting her to argue with him by the time he's finished. She doesn't. She just nods her head and curls up further into his side. She's clinging to him and he can't help but feel like this is another one of her cons. It's such a blessedly familiar feeling that he doesn't even know what to do next. Sophie's been gone for so long he's forgotten what to do during their little game. So he just wraps his arms around her and breathes her in.

They stay that way for hours when thoughts of the gun start to come back around. The mastermind immediately pulls it out and stares at it. It's cold and slick in his hand. It's silver and gray and sparkles in the moonlight if he holds it just so. The boy he bought it from said it was top of the line for home safety. The boy didn't even realize what he was selling it for. He was such a gullible kid willing to believe anything just for the sake of making a sale.

Nate points the gun towards him and immediately regrets the movement. Sophie is sleeping beside him and she was pretty certain of what she wanted. So, the mastermind just puts the gun on the floor and pushes it away. He's very careful not to wake the sleeping grifter as he does it. The last thing he wants is for her to wake up and freak out. He wants her to have a good night's rest for once. One that doesn't involve drugs, nightmares and memories all rolled up into one.

He curls up beside her and closes his eyes. The damn grifter is still saving him without even trying. She even curls up tighter into his side. She's probably still aware of the world enough to know what kind of an effect she still has on him.

0.

They are still like that, wrapped in each other's arms, when they are found.

Maggie walks into the mastermind's apartment because she is third on the list of contacts in the event that something happens to Sophie. Nate is first and Eliot was second. Tara is fourth but that's because Nate had no one else to turn to other than Sterling. Eliot had been very adamant that Sterling was not allowed on the list. And since Eliot is dead and Nate was the one who did the kidnapping she was called. The asylum was pretty adamant that she should put him in there too. She just told them to go to Hell.

Anyway, Maggie walks into the apartment with an idea of why Nate stole the grifter away. She hopes she's wrong because the earliest flight she could get was for seven in the morning and calling the cops seemed like a bigger betrayal then just showing up too late.

She walks towards the stairs and up them in a matter of seconds. She is quiet because she doesn't want to wake anybody. She's hoping there is somebody to wake really. But she ascends to the bedroom quietly and isn't surprised by what she sees.

Nate is wrapped around Sophie in a protective manner. Everything about him screams, "hurt me and don't you dare touch her." It doesn't look like either one of them are breathing but that isn't exactly uncommon. They're both two of the world's best thieves. They know when to look dead for their own protection.

Maggie walks to Nate's side of the bed and nearly screams at the gun. It's there at the foot of the bed which means it didn't do its job. The mastermind apparently decided he wasn't going to end it with a bullet after all. That is a relief.

Maggie walks towards the head of the bed and gently places her hand on the mastermind's shoulder. Her hand jumps back in shock. He's cold to the touch. She places her hand on him again and feels the cold dripping from his body. Her other hand flies towards the grifter and her stomach drops. Neither one of them is breathing and they both are ice cold.

The police order an autopsy on both bodies for the sake of safety. Sophie was a mental patient and they want to make certain no foul play is involved if only for that. Maggie just agrees because she doesn't really have the heart to tell them the truth. It doesn't matter anyway. The coroner confirms exactly what she already knew. He just said it was of natural causes and that Nate died first immediately followed by the grifter who was always willing to follow the mastermind even to their bitter end. Maggie knows the real truth.

Maggie knows that Nate died of a broken heart.

**A/N:** _I have no idea. Review? I don't own Leverage._


End file.
